Hemali Gunt, PhD: Adjunctive Skin Care for Rosacea

A study of a nature-based skin care regimen compared to synthetic regimen, each as an adjunctive treatment to prescriptions, found that patients with rosacea experienced benefits with the natural products.

Hemali Gunt, PhD, Head of Clinical Affairs for Burt’s Bees, spoke with MD Magazine® about the research at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) in Washington, DC. The products tested in the study were Burt’s Bees line of products for sensitive skin.

“The condition of rosacea—which is characterized by the presence of erythema, papules, and there is the flushing and the telangiectasia—those particular parameters were significantly decreased after the four-week treatment period in comparison to the control,” said Gunt.

The study data was presented in the poster, “Adjunctive Use of Nature-Based Skin Care Products with Prescription Therapy According to Rosacea Severity,” and 2 other posters at the 2019 AAD Annual Meeting.

MD Mag: What did this study explore in patients with rosacea?

Gunt: In this particular study, we studied our products, which are the sensitive skin care products—the cleanser, the day cream, and the night cream—and we compared our products against a control which is a dermatologist synthetic recommended brand or dermatologist recommended synthetic brand in a population with rosacea. Subjects had moderate to severe rosacea and they were on a prescription treatment, because that is what a real-world condition is. They are on treatments, but at the same time they are using skin care products like a cleanser and moisturizing lotion.

So, what we wanted to evaluate was where our products can be used as adjunct therapy when they are using prescription product. And the outcomes of the study were really positive, I mean the first step, obviously, is you want to ensure that there are no tolerability issues and we did not see any side effects whatsoever with our or nature-based products. But to add to it, what we really saw which is really promising, very exciting even to dermatologists, is that the condition of rosacea—which is characterized by the presence of erythema, papules, and there is the flushing and the telangiectasia—those particular parameters were significantly decreased after the four-week treatment period in comparison to the control.

What were the tolerability and efficacy results of the study?

So, the way we look at the study, I mean I gave you the gist of it, but there are very specific end points. The first end point is what I mentioned, tolerability. Everybody who is on a medication is using some kind of skin care product and typically dermatologists recommend something really very inert, which they have a long history of knowing that this product is not going to cause any reactions to their skin. And when we compare our products against the control, we did not see any of the tolerability [issues], so that was the first portion of it.

The second portion is to show whether we improved any of the efficacy parameters. So, that is where you know we have the papules, pustules, we have the telangiectasia or erythema and we showed anywhere from 25% to 35% improvement in each of these parameters, in comparison to the control.